Pixelation used to be the bane of digital photographers. But now, with seemingly endless megapixels sharpening our shots, the pixel can be used purposefully to make an entirely new statement (that has nothing to do with obscuring one's junk).

A majority of us experience photography digitally—from taking the shot on a dSLR to viewing it…
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Lead Shot - Don't Ask Don't Tell

I have been following the "don't ask don't tell", and wikileaks issues pretty closely and as soon as i saw the subject of this weeks challenge I knew exactly what I wanted to do. I set up the flag on my fireplace and got my wife and a friend to pose for me. I used 2 SB-600 on stands with white umbrellas on either side of the camera.
F5.6, 24mm, 1/200
-Morgan Shevett

Behind the Lens

Immediately after reading the new challenge I got the idea to put the camera as the central object in the picture. Then by "pixelmutating" everything but the camera and the hands, you create an effect which keeps them looking natural, but also a bit surreal and moving forward out of the picture. KODAK Easyshare Z1015 IS, f/3.5, 1/6 sec, ISO-800
-Peter Proost

Lemons and Cranberries

Sweet Fluid Effects

I setup a coffee mug on the edge of my window ledge, and tried desperately to capture water falling out of the mug as the mug itself fell over the edge from the deluge. After about 15 separate tries, I had made a complete mess of the floor (despite a towel and a wash-bucket to catch the spray) and the paint had begun to peel off the window. While I did manage to capture a few images of the mug mid-fall, this one lent itself best to 'pixelmutation' as it had the most interesting contrast in the water.

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As for the gear-setup, I used a Canon Digital Rebel XTi with a Canon 2.8L 24-70mm lens mounted on a Manfrotto tripod. The shot itself was 1/640 sec with a 3.5 aperture at 400 ISO. To get it, I triggered burst-shots with a wired-remote trigger as I poured the water. Post-production work was done with a combination of Lightroom 3 and Photoshop CS5.
-James Rand

Digital Delivery

I mounted my Nikon D90 and Nikon 35-70 f2.8 lens on a tripod because I wanted to make an exposure using just Christmas lights and a small lamp (off camera) of my wife and I smiling at our now-pixelmutated 5-month-old son. Shutter was triggered with a remote timer. 40mm, ISO 400, f 5.0, 1/8 sec.
-Mac Mirabile

Light, Shadow

Usually when i have a LOT to do, my brain tries everything to get distracted to avoid thinking about how much i have to do. This time, when I saw a shadow of something behind my desk, i immediately thought of the challenge and how awesome could a pixelated shadow look like. So i ran around the house looking for a subject and a lamp, and, here I am, sending you my photo :)

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The lightbulb (28W halogen) visible is the only light source for the scene, apart from some daylight creeping in through the curtains. Two shots were taken, one with the bird, one without, so to have the wall without the shadow for editing. Postproduction done in pixelmator - best image editing app EVAH! Nikon D3100 with a nikkor 18-105mm lens set to 58mm, f/8 with VR on. Mounted on a tripod, exposed for 1/13 at ISO 400.
-Marek Bączyński

8-bit Kicks

This is my First Gizmodo photo shoot contest, I've been wanting to do one for a while but just never had the time to try my hand at it. I'm not sure why I choose to shoot sneakers, I guess its because i have so many pairs but I took roughly 50 shots before I finally settled on this one affectionately known as 8bit kicks. Hopefully, I can contribute more often it was a lot of fun! Canon T2i, EFS 15 - 85mm , ISO 1600
-Akira Lewis

WINNER - Digital Library

First time submission for the challenge. I recently got the Kindle, and this made me realize that books were one of the last things in my life that I've gone digital with, so I wanted to capture that. I love reading, and the shelf is actually hand made by my grandfather, so it's weird to think I won't use it for books for too much longer.

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I just played around with shutter speeds and aperture until something looked half decent. Cropped out all the background garbage so you only see the books. Decided to highlight each book individually and pixelmutate them. I wanted to use big cells for the mutation part just to make the books absolutely unrecognizable. Took some time to actually pixelmutate everything (1.5 hrs roughly) but I'm quite happy with the results. Nikon D60, 1/25th of a second, f3.5, ISO 1250
-Robert Faulkner

The winner was a really tough call this week! Entries like Light, Shadow were incredibly clever while entries like Fluid Effects were technical masterpieces. But for me, today, Digital Library wins it. Name your favorites in the comments and find the full-size shots on flickr.